Dream Land

I had a dream that my sister told me she was pregnant. Then I said, "That's strange because last night I dreamt that you told me that." Then she said, "No you did not! You're just saying that so that I'll think you dream the future." I said, "No, I really did dream it."

When I woke up, I realized I had just had a dream about arguing that I had a dream about what I was actually dreaming.

I'm confused.

My CAN'T WAIT TO MISS IT List:

The farewell series TV tour of “The Dukes of Hazzard” – yes it’s being advertised

Car shows

Graduation ceremonies

A televised funeral of a member of the Martin Luther King family (No disrespect intended but those things go on for a minimum of five hours because every politico in the damn country has to show up and say something.)

My own funeral for that matter, just because I’d prefer not to attend that function.

Wrestling and all that it implies

Christmas party open houses with no alcohol, hard cookies, and boring people that can’t be made more interesting because there is no alcohol!

Piano recitals

Any appearance of Regis Philbin, that chirpy whats-her-name co-host he has, Rosie O’Donnell, Charo, Katie Couric, Deborah Messing, or Celine Dion

The Country Music Awards

Renaissance Festivals (My Lady this!)

Any basket, candle, make-up, cooking, jewelry or some other sell you something you don’t need or want for exorbitant prices party put on at people’s homes. (Luckily I quit responding to any such invitations and am no longer asked to attend. I cry myself to sleep every night—NOT!)

Most gatherings attended by masses of humans, including weddings, especially weddings with receptions at the church--snooze

If it requires the wearing of panty hose, I’m out!

Group sing-alongs

Parties with name tag stickers (this always portends disaster)

Family reunions, unless it’s not your family and they are serving alcohol, but when does that perfect mix ever occur?

(To be continued . . .)

Photo Blues

Jack's been traveling a lot on business so he came up with this idea that he could use his frequent-flyer points to take me with him overseas, proving that he must be a masochist. I discovered that I had to make an appointment days in advance to apply for a passport now, due to the fact that Americans are required to have papers to travel outside of our country's borders, while everyone else has a free-for-all. Anyway, I just told them to go ahead and take my picture at the post office where I applied--bad idea!

I thought I'd gussied up for the occasion, until they gave me back a photo of an old, angry, overweight prison matron. Who was that person and how could they possibly attach that photo to my passport? For a mere $15 they shattered any hopes I had of being the toast of Europe. Well, actually I never harbored that hope, but up until then I thought it at least okay to appear in public.

Turns out I got sort of a reprieve, because they no longer accept birth certificates like mine--you know the ones etched on papyrus or chiseled on a granite slab. "We don't accept these certificates with footprints on them anymore," the passport official told me, explaining that I would have to notify National Geographic for a state-issued document. It's just as well, I surmised, because even I wouldn't let me into another country looking like that. Vowing to get on the treadmill and go on a water-only diet, I imagined that it would be just my luck to go missing in some country and they'd broadcast that gosh-awful photo all over the news. "Why are they even looking for her?" people would say. Then I'd show up unharmed, after days of trying to find my way back from the lobby to my hotel room. Oh the humiliation. As I drove home I saw a sign (and it must have been a sign) at the CVS Drug Store: Passport photos--$7.99. How could they do worse, after all? It remains to be seen.

Relevant Question--for Me at Least . . .

How much does a used, but good bullhorn cost? Don't ask.

Emergency Broadcast This!

Have you ever noticed that those damn “required” emergency alert broadcasts always interrupt the television program right in the middle of Leno’s monologue, just as the mystery is solved, right when they announce the murderer’s sentence, or just as Judge Judy is about to humiliate someone? What good is this emergency broadcast thing? In the event of a real national emergency what could the instructions possibly be other than stay tuned for further instructions? Are “they” keeping this whole sham going just so they can print the words “Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye” across the screen when the time comes? That makes me even more ticked off, because if I’m about to be blown to kingdom come, I’d just as soon be laughing at a punch line.

Kid-Netics

On yet another channel-changing expedition, I saw Fantasia, that past winner of an American Idol competition, singing the Porgy & Bess song, “Summer Time.” This video brought back a memory (or a few). My mom used to sing that song to my older sister and I in an attempt to put us to sleep. However, I was horrified by the words that told me one day I was going to “flap my wings and take to the sky.” I prayed that it wouldn’t happen, because I had no idea of where I would go.

Many, many cynical years later, in a family tradition kind of way, I was singing the same lyrics to my three-year-old son, trying to put him to sleep. His little cherubic eyes were closed as he listened. Then I got to these words: “Your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good lookin’.’” His eyes popped opened; he raised a stubby finger, lifted his head from his pillow, and in that ducky voice that all kids have he said, “Wait a secon’! My daddy’s not rich an’ you’re not good lookin’” Then he threw his little head back and just laughed and laughed.

Oh my God, I thought. He’s his mama’s son. I hope he can live with it.

This Day Sucked!

7:30 a. m. – I had planned to sleep later but I woke up and started worrying about money and bills and couldn’t go back to sleep.

8:30 – Tried to open a file and my computer crashed.

9:30 – Started calling people again for interviews in order to get paid for my freelance article jobs. Struck out completely.

10:00 – Computer revived so I started looking for jobs on the Internet without any luck. I found two jobs that I thought I could do in the AJC, but one was in Tennessee and the other said that applicant had to be 55 years or older. Since when am I too young for a job?!!

10:30 – Decided to spend the rest of the day cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry. At least I can do something productive.

10:31 – Turn on kitchen faucet to start cleaning. No water! (A road crew has broken a major water line, I soon discover.) I haven’t had a shower, so running errands is out of the question. Okay, you haven’t seen me in the morning!!

11:00 – I decide to work out on the treadmill, but it’s downstairs and our Lab hasn’t been doing well on the stairs since his last vertigo bout, so I have to walk him around the front gate, down the driveway, and into the garage. Then I lead him through Jack’s garage of horrors (believe me it’s slow going) through the downstairs door into the hallway that leads to my basement office containing treadmill. Still in morning attire, I walk with both dogs (have Pug, must follow) into the great outdoors. I almost made it but with my lucky timing the water meter man comes driving up. Triage! Triage! Pug will run toward truck; Lab will bite driver; driver will see me in this condition! Dragged Lab into garage, hit automatic closer, yelled up the stairs for son to save pug, knocked my shin off trying to find light.

11:45 – Attempt the reverse trip back. Pug wanders down driveway. Lab rambles off into the woods. It’s like herding cats. The remote phone in my hand rings. It’s one of the people I’ve been trying to contact for two months and my deadline is next week. Can’t answer, must retrieve errant canines.

12:00 – Call the interview contact back to talk about his company and he tells me a very sad story about his dog dying. What?

1:00 – Still no water! Now I’m sweaty, stinky, frustrated, and my house is still a mess.

1:45 – I get a call from a political party asking me to donate $75 or more. Are you kidding me?! I’ll send money to the first politician that gets me a steady job.

2:00 – I try my fifty spins on the I-Won Casino Machine. (You guessed it.) I did look up Jon Bon Jovi’s age—45 and he looks fantastic! Also sunflowers are used for their seeds as well as sunflower oil. There are other uses but who gives a damn.

2:45 – I think I blacked out.

3:00 – Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine. I don’t have ANY! My sister calls to tell me that the lunch she scheduled for the next day with me and Mom will be attended by several people from her office. Nooo! Don’t you know I have social anxiety? Also it’s at one of those cafeteria-type scenarios where you have to go through a line. The double whammy.

3:30 – What’s that noise? The water is back on. Hallelujah! I can take a shower, the highlight of my day.

4:00 – I start to organize my bills and determine how much money I made this month.

4:01 -- I start to cry.

5:45 -- On and on and on. Nothing good to eat in the kitchen, but I’m not leaving for the grocery now. Can you imagine the traffic and how many of "the others" will be out and about?

7:00 – Let the dog in and out. Let the other dog in and out. Let the other dog in and out. Let the other dog in and out . . . to infinity and beyond.

8:00 – Turn the television on the TV Guide channel and wait for three hours for it to run around to the first five channels. Just as it gets there, it cuts out for a monthly required bleeping test of the broadcast system.

8:15 – Stop Lab from “making love” to his bedding.

9:30 – Tried to tell Jack the story about the dog, but his narcolepsy kicked in before I got through the first sentence. (I feel pretty and very interesting as well.)

9:00 – Contemplated taking another shower. Changed channels and saw a story about a kid whose parents kept him in a cage and made him wear a dog shock collar. Nope. The next channel is all about the deadly jellyfish of Australia. They kill with one sting.

10:00 – Researched airfare to beach in Australia.

11:40 – Turn on Jay Leno and Burt Bacharach is singing and playing the piano. He is STILL alive, which is fine, but he is STILL "singing." Turned off television.

12:00 -- Made final well-researched conclusion: This Day SUCKED!

Looking a Gift Horse . . .

My Mom always looks like she stepped out of a bandbox. (Isn’t that the old expression?) Color coordinated accessories, every shining white hair in place—people often comment on how beautiful she is. In fact, I have a picture of her in my family photo groupings hanging in the hallway. She was about 19-years-old in the picture and looks like a movie star. One day a young man we hired from one of those carpet cleaning places stopped his machine mid-hallway and said, “Whoaa, who is this?” referring to the picture. “That’s my Mom,” I told him. Not even hesitating to realize that she was no longer the same age as in the picture, he replied, “Next time you see her, tell her I said ‘BABE-O-LICIOUS!’”

Okaaay.

Anyway on one of her visits recently we were walking out of the grocery story when a Hispanic woman sitting in her car in the parking lot called out to Mom, “Oh you look so preeetty today.” Mom can’t hear that well anymore, though she won’t admit it, and kept walking, so I held up my hand, smiled, and started to say, “Wait a minute, she didn’t hear you” when this lady yells, “NO! NOT YOU! Her!”

“Yes, I know,” I said, and retrieved my mother. Mom told the lady of her upcoming 79th birthday and the lady went on and on about how she hoped she would look half that good at Mom’s age. As we got in the car, I said, “Wasn’t that nice?”

“Well she said when she was my age!” Mom huffed.

Wow. How would she have taken the vehement “NO! NOT YOU!”?!